


Happiness is like England

by middlemarch



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Old Friends, Women Being Awesome, references to romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 17:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: They'd been having this same conversation for over twenty-five years.





	Happiness is like England

“So, you like him,” Amy said, drawing out the _i_ in like the way they had when they were 7th graders and had first begun to think that there might be something to soap operas and all those lingering close-ups. When they might have spent hours on the phone after dinner, Vivian perched on the kitchen counter, the coil of the phone cord wound around her like a cocoon-in-progress, Amy hanging halfway off her bed, the handset in the shape of a pink stiletto pressed against her cheek. They’d already been friends for a long time then, what seemed like a century ago now, and it had been such a day today that Vivian had known her tether to sanity was all tied up in a call to Amy.

“Amy, c’mon, I’m an adult,” Vivian replied, looking at the draining board covered with dirty mugs, the lap-top splayed in front of her. 

“So what? I can hear it in your voice—at least, I think I can. Are you picking up a British accent and it’s just that?” Amy asked, wryly enough Vivian was forced to laugh, just a little.

“No. It’s complicated, though, the case is so…fraught and he can be hard to read and I need to focus on the experiment too. It’s not that easy,” Vivian said. She thought of the offices, his and hers, and the lab that Q had set aside for her, all that gleaming tempered glass and an incongruous and exquisite Persian rug “to make up for the lack of a view,” Q had said, his version of sheepish, which was always three-quarters distraction and 5% complete, laser-like focus.

“You’re making it complicated, Vivian. I say that with love because you know I love you, which is why I agreed to do that research for you on Beowulf, even though you know I’m not a specialist in Old English and there must be someone at Oxbridge you could be asking about this instead of me and I had to get in touch with Vance, Vance! and listen to him for like eighty-seven hours, when I have that lecture on Christine de Pisan to finish for Friday, and it’s 5 o’clock here so my three children have basically devolved into horrifying prehistoric monster versions of themselves all wanting goldfish,” Amy said, ranting as she picked up steam, operatic as a proper British tea-kettle.

“Goldfish?” Vivian interjected, not quite managing the innocent tone she’d hoped for.

“Pepperidge Farm. Like you don’t remember. Seriously, as much as I want to know, and by the way, I totally admit I want to know, I want you to know. For real, be honest with yourself—I’m going to try not to ask this like a leading question. Does he make you happy?” Amy said. 

She’d been avoiding asking herself the same question. She’d been avoiding asking herself why she was avoiding it. She’d focused on the work, on deciphering the arcane hierarchies at MI6 and what the fuck was going on with Bond, on keeping up and staying ahead but now, she let herself consider it. Gareth’s eyes and his manner, that keen intelligence and that shockingly gentle touch, his afterglow voice reciting not Auden or Larkin but Stevie Smith, asking questions and listening to her answers. What it felt like when he looked for her as soon as she entered the room, when he called something out, anything really, just to say her name with it, as she left.

“Yes. He makes me happy,” she admitted.

“You don’t have to sound so broken up about it. It’s good news,” Amy replied, not missing a beat. Not missing a trick.

“Is it?” Vivian asked. There was a muffled howl through the phone, less muffled cursing mingled with apologies for said-cursing, Amy’s voice echo-y, half-away from the phone yelling for her husband Chris _to come out of your goddam study and finish the pasta!_

“Yeah, I think it is,” Amy said, as if there’d been no interruption. Her voice said it could be complicated and easy in all sorts of ways and that Vivian could figure it out. And when she got stuck, there was the phone and the original Peyton Place to re-watch and Skittles to chuck at the screen, however wide the seas were that parted them.

“Okay, I’ll let you go,” Vivian said.

“It’ll be all right, Vivi. You’re happy and that’s a good place to start from. I’ll call you tomorrow—I think I’ll have something for your case, Vance was actually helpful, believe it or not, and you can tell me about everything else,” Amy said.

“Everything else?”

“You know, the juicy stuff,” Amy said, laughed, and the phone clicked. Vivian held it in her hand and smiled. And then tapped in another number, wondering what she’d hear when he answered, “Mallory” or “M?”

“Vivian?”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is getting a little involved now that my Mary Sue OFC has a Carrie Lou OFC best friend :) The title is from Stevie Smith.


End file.
